A new concept of designing and synthesizing highly dispersed ionic-liquid catalysts was developed through physical confinement or encapsulation of ionic liquids (with or without metal complex) in a silica-gel matrix through a sol-gel process. We studied ionic liquids such as EMImBF4, BuMImBF4, DMImBF4, CMImBF4, BuMImPF6, either with or without [Pd(PPh3)2Cl2] and [Rh(PPh3)3Cl], in a silica-gel m...

Ionic liquids − defined as salts with a melting point below 100 ◦C – date back to 1914, when Paul Walden reported on [C2H5NH3][NO3], a salt with a melting point of +12 ◦C. While Walden was surely ahead of his time, ionic liquids made an impressive development during the last 10 years. This is due to their unique portfolio of properties: high temperature stability (in favourable cases up to 400 ...

HOW TO CITE: Reddy P. A critical review of ionic liquids for the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass. S Afr J Sci. 2015;111(11/12), Art. #2015-0083, 9 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/ sajs.2015/20150083 Ionic liquids have been the subject of active research over the course of the last decade and have in the past been touted as one of the most promising technologies for revolutionising the...

The number of applications involving ionic liquids has dramatically increased in the past few years, and their production and use in a large scale will inevitably lead to their dispersion into water streams (either by wastewater disposal or accidental leakage). Studies on the removal and recovery of ionic liquids from wastewater streams are therefore of crucial importance, yet particularly scar...

We have investigated the ultrafast molecular dynamics of five pyrrolidinium cation room temperature ionic liquids using femtosecond optical heterodyne-detected Raman-induced Kerr effect spectroscopy. The ionic liquids studied are N-butyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide P14+/NTf2-), N-methoxyethyl-N-methylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide P1EOE+/NTf2-), N-et...

1-Alkenyl-2,3-dimethylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate ionic liquids having an olefinic substituent were synthesized and characterized. Among them, [AMMIm]BF4 with an allyl group showed lower viscosity, higher ionic conductivity, and a wider electrochemical window compared with its analogue having a saturated alkyl substituent. An EDLC with [AMMIm]BF4 showed better performance than that with [PMMI...

Physico-chemical properties of liquid mixtures in general display large deviations from linear behaviour, arising out of complex specific and non-specific intermolecular interactions. The polarity of liquid mixtures displaying large positive and negative deviations can be minimized and linear mixing can be achieved in liquids using a pseudo-solvent methodology. The work described herein is desi...